Two major submarine cables that connect Pakistan with the world just went offline, Green Hat Tech has confirmed.
As per details available with ToolLeaf, SEAMEWE 4 and IMEWE, that takes the load of almost 50% of Pakistan’s internet traffic, went offline due to a fault at a location that’s yet not located.
Update (2000 PST Oct 29, 2019)
We are just told that a third submarine cable system, AAE-1, also went down partially due to severe flapping. Experts said that this new outage is only going to worsen the service quality.
As a result, Pakistani internet users will continue to face slow internet speeds until the faults in cable systems are fixed.
ISPs confirmed ToolLeaf of the outage and said they are in process of shifting the load to other submarine systems, that will balance the load to an extent, however, services may remain down until the full restoration of IMEWE and SEAMEWE 4.
A spokesman of PTCL confirmed about the outage and said that the customers may experience slow browsing. “Technical teams are working on fully restoring internet services in the shortest possible time”,
No time frame has been communicated regarding the repair of both impacted submarine cables, sources confirmed ToolLeaf. PTA spokesperson, however, confirmed ToolLeaf that full restoration of both the cables could take days.
Pakistan is connected with the other world through six submarine cables, a number that’s surpassed by all regional countries. Oman, for instance, a country way smaller than Pakistan, has a lot more submarine cables landing there.
Update (0315 PST Oct 30, 2019)
Both the impacted submarine cables have been fully restored to full working capacity after the faults were fixed by the technical teams.
Internet speeds are now back to normal again.
